Status of social support and influencing factors among Chinese elderly aged 60 years and over: a meta-analysis

Objective To understand the current status of social support among the elderly, aged ≥ 60 years, as well as to identify influencing factors and to provide a reference for relevant health care services. Methods Publications about social support of the elderly were collected by searching the database of CNKI, VIP, Wanfang Data, Pubmed, and Web of Science. A random effects model was employed according to the results of heterogeneity (I2>50%) to pool the extracted data. Results Thirty-two articles were included, with a total sample of 21 763 articles. Total scores of social support and three dimensions were low, with social support of 34.047 (95%CI: 32.532-35.563), subjective support of 19.218 (95%CI: 17.589-20.846), objective support of 7.787 (95%CI: 7.483-8.091), and support utilization of 7.075 (95%CI: 6.884-7.266). Scores of elderly with character of high age (aged 80: 30.907, 95%CI: 28.378-33.436), female (32.512, 95%CI: 30.723-34.300), low education (illiteracy: 32.088, 95%CI: 30.944-33.231; primary school: 32.709, 95%CI: 30.069-35.349), country side (33.780, 95%CI: 31.523-36.038), empty nest (32.301, 95%CI: 27.061-37.542) and incomplete marriage (discoverture: 27.044, 95%CI: 24.652-29.437; divorced: 29.159, 95%CI: 24.520-33.791) was lower than the others. Conclusions The current status of social support is not optimistic. Scores of social support and its dimensions were relatively low, and a significant difference was found between elderly of different character, indicating that health interventions should be implemented based on character. Key words: Aged; Social support; Meta-analysis